A Question For The Ages
by Manchester
Summary: There are some things which should never be answered, but this never bothered Andrew Wells. Xander, on the other hand, is not happy. At all.


Their situation had now become truly desperate. Only a few seconds ago, the pair of New Council members had been taking it easy, sitting down at the back of the cavern they were both trapped inside. Given the usual weird and dangerous events they were used to, the latest predicament for Xander Harris and Andrew Wells hadn't been all that alarming at first. Yeah, the opening to the cavern in the Ozarks region had collapsed an hour or so ago, sealing them in, but the rest of the underground room had stayed intact, with the stone ceiling and walls remaining where they were supposed to be, propping up their prison. Even so, they had plenty of air, their flashlights were working just fine, and a careful check of the rest of the cavern had shown no signs of any possible belligerent creatures of the dark sharing the place with them and hungrily deciding they wanted to snack on the Sunnydale survivors.

Best of all, both Xander and Andrew could hear the small band of Slayers they'd brought along to investigate rumors of a demonic treasure hidden somewhere in the Missouri hills. During this, the men had become separated from the half-dozen girls while checking out the cavern, which meant all the superhuman females had been outside the cave when the hillside entrance to this stone hollow had come down. Past the tons of fallen rock closing the way in, the California natives could faintly hear scraping sounds, indicating Rona and the rest of the gang were busily digging and heaving aside entire boulders during their bare-handed excavation. From the increasing noise, it wouldn't take much longer for them to be freed.

For which Xander was profoundly thankful, given that his companion had just said something unforgivable. With nothing else to do with their time while waiting for rescue, he and Andrew had simply chatted with each other about anything occurring to them. There'd been the usual arguments about which Star Trek captain they'd like to serve under, how many times George Lucas was going to re-release his reworked creations, and whether the Slayers outside would be satisfied with both of the men's weight in chocolate to keep quiet about the latest embarrassing incident today. After running out of things to talk about a few minutes before, the pair of males had been quietly listening to the increasing clatter beyond the pile of rubble before themselves, waiting for the first gleam of sunlight shining through a newly-created hole in there made by some happy Slayer eager to tease the liberated men.

Then, completely out of the blue, Andrew had mentioned a topic which in Xander's opinion had immediately put him in the category of 'People Who Must Die NOW For Saying That!'

In his most dangerous tone, Xander snarled at the startled geek, "Andrew, I've never, ever, not in my whole life, wondered or even wanted to actually find out if Angel wore boxers or briefs. Where the _hell_ did that come from?"

Continuing to lean back against the cavern's far wall next to Xander, Andrew shrugged in the dim light cast by their flashlights lying on the rocky ground before defensively replying, "Hey, it just occurred to me, and you've got years more experience than me with him and the rest of those kinds of demons, so I just thought you'd know the answer to-"

"Don't you dare say another word!" Xander despondently snapped, knowing from seeing Andrew's mouth opening that yet another ghastly question was gonna escape anyway. Sure enough, the cavern then heard something which had never been asked before in the entire history of the world:

"Do vampires need to wear underwear?"

Slumping back in his own position against the stone wall, Xander fatalistically contemplated a quick reverse pound of his head against the hard rock, with enough power to knock him out but not give him yet another concussion. It seemed to be the only way to stop listening to Andrew's running off his mouth over such things as, "It seems like there's a case for either yes or no. I mean, vamps drink blood but this is mystically absorbed by their demonic bodies, so they probably don't need to get rid of it and other wastes-"

Okay, just for that, Xander was gonna see if anybody else in the New Council, from Giles, Buffy, Wils, and the rest down, would buy the excuse that he wasn't fast enough to stop Andy from mysteriously committing suicide here by strangling himself to death in the next five seconds. Casually glancing over to check that Andrew's hands were the same size as his own and would leave matching bruises around the other man's throat, Xander vowed that if necessary, he'd share with the others the horrible image of centuries-old skidmarks to escape being charged with murder.

"-on the other hand, there's the problem of chafing, which they're still susceptible-"

Without meaning to, Xander absently mentioned, "All I know, Drusilla didn't."

Well, _that _worked. However, judging by the current fascinated silence from the person next to him, Andrew was going to demand actual specifics in the next two seconds. Sighing and knowing he had no other choice, Xander rolled his remaining eye upwards in exasperation, and without looking over, the former Scooby Gang member muttered, "It was one of our first fights in Sunnydale with Spike and her. I got clobbered like usual, and when I was flat on my back, she stepped over me to take on Buffy. That crazy vamp was dressed in her usual Victorian Goth look, with the long ragged skirt, and, uh, I looked right up it by accident. Are you satisfied now-"

Andrew interrupted Xander's embarrassed mumble by musing, "I forgot Spike. Say, do you think he wore a thong? He was just the type, you've got to admit."

A minute later, Rona grunted at the effort of yanking free a particularly large boulder at the top of the stone heap. Her grunt changed into a startled yelp at seeing Xander's frantic face peering out from the other side of the hole she'd just made. Turning her head to shout in glee at the rest of the Slayers working around her, "Here he is!"

A wide grin now on her face, Rona dropped the big rock at her feet and looked up to see Xander desperately squirming out of the cavern through the newly-created narrow passage in the rubble. Staring in confusion at the man ignoring the ripping of his clothing and several nasty scrapes on his skin caused by the sharp edges of the other boulders still blocking the cavern entrance, Rona kept on watching while Xander scrambled onto his feet. A second later, the veteran Slayer was swept up off her own boots in a tremendous hug by the one-eyed man, who then proceeded to give her a big, sloppy kiss of thanks.

Putting the stunned woman back down on the rock pile, Xander wildly looked around, to then shout at the rest of the staring Slayers, "Great work, girls! See you back at the hotel! Don't bother waiting for me, I'll run there and get everybody ready to leave! See ya!"

A half-dozen lower jaws fell slackly open due to these young ladies witnessing their fearless leader at once taking to his heels, sprinting down the loose rubble pile without any thought of the danger of this, and then running at full speed down the tree-lined valley leading away from the cavern. Xander didn't slow down or otherwise respond to Rona's incensed yell after him, "It's twenty miles away, you idiot! What's the matter with you, anyway?"

Glaring at Xander's departing back, a flicker of motion out of the corner of her eye caught Rona's attention. She turned her head to see Andrew poking his own head out of the hole, and sending his best evil smirk at where Xander had now vanished from sight while still maintaining the maximum possible velocity on two legs.

"Okay, Andrew, just what happened in there, with the two of you, to make Xan take off like that?" Rona uneasily demanded.

Pausing to put a supremely wicked smile on his lips, Andrew Wells intoned, "A gentleman never tells."


End file.
